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How do I troubleshoot a usb device and/or port in Mac OS X Mountain Lion?

I have gone to 'about this mac>systen report' and I see the device listed, but I do not see a way to test for functionality. Is there a way to self-test for this or would the mac say that the specific port or device was Not working if it wasn't? I am coming from a windows environment. How does this kind of thiing work on a Mac?

Mac OS X (10.7.4), MacMini Server

Posted on Aug 2, 2012 10:56 AM

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3 replies

Aug 2, 2012 1:28 PM in response to ST67

Apple has robust USB support built-in to the system. Unlike Windows 7, OS X will not go out on the network and download missing or updated device drivers for you. Nor will it provide you a dialog that the device isn't working. It will just sit there and stare back at your frustration. Welcome to UNIX.


There is no guarantee that a device that shows up in System Information (profile) will also work as expected. If the device manufacturer has not explicitly made the USB device compatible with (current) OS X OS requirements, it may simply not work. Or worse, it will spew tons of complaints into the system log file. It may also require a kernel extension to work and that is another matter entirely.


Here are some command-line diagnostics that can be run in the Terminal.app. May or may not help you.


$ sudo dmesg | more


Look for entries that talk about USB devices including hubs.


You should also look at the system log because USB devices that are connected, but misbehaving will write volumes of entries into the system log. I just detected a bad USB hub this way. The other symptom was that my system.log file was growing rapidly past 2GB.


$ grep USB /var/log/system.log | more


Show the USB entries in the I/O kit registry


$ ioreg -b | grep USB | more


How do I troubleshoot a usb device and/or port in Mac OS X Mountain Lion?

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